White House Statement on
the First Anniversary of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

December 8, 1988

One
year ago today, on December 8, 1987, in the East Room of
the White House, President Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev
signed a historic document, the Treaty Between the
United States of America and the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics on the Elimination of
Their Intermediate-Range and Shorter-Range Missiles, commonly referred to as
the INF treaty. Under this agreement, for the first time in history an entire
class of U.S. and Soviet nuclear
missiles will be eliminated, based on the zero-option proposal first put
forward by President Reagan in 1981. This achievement is a direct consequence
of the President's steadfast commitment to real arms reductions that strengthen
U.S. and allied security
rather than merely limiting increases as in previous treaties. It is also the
result of allied solidarity in responding to the threat posed by Soviet
deployment of SS - 20 missiles.

The
INF treaty provides for the elimination of all U.S. and Soviet missiles
with ranges of 500 - 5,500 kilometers (about 300 - 3,400 miles), along with
their launchers, support equipment, and support structures by June
1, 1991,
3 years after the treaty entered into force. The treaty also bans all
production and flight testing of these missiles immediately upon entry into
force. Once the missiles are eliminated, the treaty prohibits either party from
possessing any INF missiles, launchers, support equipment, or support
structures.

From
the beginning of the INF negotiations, President Reagan emphasized that it
would be better to have no treaty rather than one that could not be effectively
verified. The INF treaty contains the most stringent verification provisions in
the history of arms control, including extensive data exchanges, on-site
inspections, resident inspectors at a key missile facility in each country, and
prohibitions on interference with national technical means of verification.

The
elimination of U.S. and Soviet INF missile
systems is well underway: the Soviets have eliminated about 433 missiles, while
the U.S. has eliminated about
108, in the presence of inspectors from the other side, since eliminations
began in August of this year. In addition to monitoring the destruction of
missiles, U.S. and Soviet inspectors
have also conducted inspections at 130 Soviet facilities and 31 U.S. INF
facilities, and each side has established a continuous monitoring presence at a
key missile facility in the other's territory.

The
signing of the INF treaty last December was a remarkable success for U.S. foreign policy and for
the NATO alliance as a whole, a success made possible by allied unity and
perseverance. NATO demonstrated that it has the political will to make and
stand by the tough decisions necessary to ensure its security. Our common
objectives were achieved: the elimination of both longer-range and
shorter-range Soviet INF missiles -- limitations that are global in order to
prevent transfer of the INF threat from one region to another -- and agreement
that INF limits apply only to the forces of the U.S. and the USSR. The treaty also
affirmed the principle of asymmetrical reductions to achieve equal U.S. and Soviet levels, an
important precedent for future arms negotiations.

Since
the signing of the INF treaty, the U.S. has continued its efforts to achieve a
safer world, including through negotiations for deep, equitable, and verifiable
reductions in strategic arsenals, a stable balance in conventional forces in
Europe, an effectively verifiable global ban on chemical weapons, and effective
and verifiable agreements on nuclear testing limitations. The signing of the
INF treaty 1 year ago today was a good first step.